


Even Angels Weep

by Emmbee_89



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), no beta we saunter vaguely downward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-02 14:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20277538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmbee_89/pseuds/Emmbee_89
Summary: Aziraphale has a bad day.





	Even Angels Weep

**Author's Note:**

> I've been haunting the Good Omens fandom for several weeks now, and I'm like, hey, I wanna play, too. So ... yeah. Super self-indulgent, but, eh. Who better than your truest OTP to indulge with?

Aziraphale was feeling anxious.

Well. That wasn't exactly new. He'd been anxious rather a lot. It was, he thought, one of his defining attributes -- one that he had hoped would eventually ease now that the world was saved and Heaven wasn't coming after him.

He was _free,_ after all. Shouldn't that mean he didn't have to worry anymore?

And yet, there he was, sitting in his favorite chair, a cup of tea steaming at his elbow and a freshly-acquired ancient manuscript on his desk in front of him, and he couldn't make his eyes focus on the writing in front of him. The world was swimming faintly, his breath just to the wrong side of too short, his fingers fluttering from teacup to armrest and back again without settling anywhere.

He kept hoping to hear the tinkle of the bell above the shop door, Crowley's familiar voice calling out to him, perhaps inviting him out for a spot of lunch. They didn't have plans, per se, but when had that ever stopped the demon, especially since the Not-End? Aziraphale tried to banish the thought. He shouldn't depend so much on others to help manage his moods. It was unbecoming -- and, more importantly, it was unfair to Crowley, who had surely grown quite sick of Aziraphale's unrelenting anxiety.

But the bell remained stubbornly silent. Which was good, Aziraphale told himself. Ideal. He didn't need anyone to see him when he was in such a state.

But the silence was making the bookshop feel too tight. The walls, where they weren't swimming faintly in his vision, felt like they were pressing in on him, squeezing the air out of the room. He usually liked his full, cluttered shelves, the books and little knickknacks he'd accumulated over the last six millennia, tokens of the places he'd been and the people he'd met.

But suddenly, it was all too much. There was no space around him, no room to breathe, and while he didn't strictly need the breath, he'd been in the habit so long that the tight space felt like it was choking him. He got to his feet and hurried out the door.

\---

It was an overcast day, a bit too cold for September and the coat he hadn't thought to grab. Still, the chill felt good, a flash of relief from the stuffy heat of the bookshop. It eased the prickly feeling dancing across his skin.

Aziraphale didn't have any particular destination in mind -- the urge to get out had been just that, an urge. A compulsion to mindlessly follow, not a thought-through plan.

And now that he was out on the street, hurrying with the crowd, he didn't actually know what he was hoping to do. Ideas raced through his head, none of them sticking around long enough for him to actually grab onto and pursue. Food, tea, maybe a drink at the pub down the street? But no, he wasn't hungry, and it was probably too early in the day to have a drink.

And he didn't want to be inside anyway. That was the whole point of leaving the bookshop, wasn't it?

Rain dripped from the clouds. It wasn't until someone knocked into his shoulder, nearly pushing him down into the sidewalk, that he realized he'd stopped moving. He shivered and folded his arms across his chest, hoping to hold in a little bit of warmth.

The busy streets of Soho was not the best place to have a breakdown. Is that what was happening? He'd seen people having panic attacks before, and he couldn't pretend that the symptoms he was experiencing weren't similar. The difficulty breathing, the swimming vision, the inability to comprehend one's surroundings -- it all seemed rather like the human panics he'd seen before.

But this wasn't right. He was meant to soothe, to love, to care for others experiencing their worst moments. To come up beside those who were silently falling apart on the inside and give them the strength to continue through it. To ease broken hearts and shattered nerves. To remind those who felt lonely that they were never truly alone.

He loved the world and all those creatures that inhabited it. He wasn't supposed to be the one to need the gentle miracles he was meant to perform for others.

He shook his head, trying to straighten out the tangled web of his thoughts.

Perhaps it was the rain. He should've grabbed his coat. But he still didn't dare turn around and head back into the shop -- the memory of those clenching-in walls and the air too thick to breathe kept him moving forward.

How long he walked, he wasn't sure. Long enough for the drizzle to soak his clothing -- _oh, dear, he really should've grabbed his coat_ \-- and drip in unpleasant icy drops under his collar.

Still, he hadn't gone more than a few blocks away from the shop, though he was sure he'd been out in the streets for much longer than that. He paused at the door to one of his favorite pubs. Perhaps a quick nip inside would do him well, and the owner of the place was such a friendly fellow.

A few moments of pleasantries, a drink to steady his overwrought nerves, and perhaps that would ease the unbearable tightness in his chest.

The pub was empty and dark when he went inside -- it wasn't even noon yet and he'd accidentally miracled open the door, Aziraphale realized a moment too late. The heat he thought the cold rain had finally washed away flamed across his face as he realized his mistake.

He was such an fool. A soft, pathetic excuse for even a person, let alone an angel.

There was a noise from behind the bar, and the owner, carrying a tub of empty glasses, rounded the corner. He froze. "Mr. Fell?" he said slowly, uncertain. "How did you--?"

"I-I'm so sorry. I must've misread ... I'm sorry." Hellfire couldn't have burned hotter than Aziraphale's cheeks. The other man's face was swimming, and the angel had the wild thought that he might actually discorperate on the spot, swallowed up by his own embarrassment. What a way that would be to go. The archangels would certainly have such a laugh at that. He could almost hear Gabriel's voice, low and mocking in his ear.

_Embarrassed to death. So pathetic._

He turned and fled back out to the street.

\---

It was growing dark by the time he summoned up the courage to return to the bookshop. The rain had come and gone in splatters, often enough to keep him wet down to his bones. The bouts of panic had done much the same, gripping him in waves at just the moments he thought that maybe he was getting ready to breathe and move past it.

The people on the streets ignored him, and even when he tried to catch their eyes, to smile and nod and assure them that they were seen, no one responded.

He'd been through Hell and back -- literally -- in an effort to keep these humans alive and safe and well, and none of them could even bother to look at him.

He tried to reason the resulting loneliness away. They didn't know him -- he was a stranger on the streets of Soho, just as wet and miserable as they themselves were.

It was the misery that affected him the most. If only someone would _look_ at him, he could approach, smile, perhaps brush shoulders with them and remind them that they were loved. A single moment's eye-contact would do it. The gentle brush of shoulders or fingers. The chance to offer someone a flicker of love.

What kind of angel was he that he couldn't feel anything but loneliness and misery?

_Useless. Pathetic._

Perhaps not an angel at all.

It was that last thought that drove him back toward the isolation of the bookshop, a sudden urgent need to check himself over in private, to make sure he hadn't ... he hadn't...

He could even think the word.

Probably another ridiculous feeling. Surely there'd be no question if he actually...

But the fear was still there. Real. Pressing into his lungs and running in icy lines through his blood.

_Useless. Pathetic._

"That you, angel?" called a familiar voice from the back when the bell above the bookshop door tinkled with his entrance.

Aziraphale tried to swallow down another wave of panic. He was in no state to be facing Crowley. Dignity was a virtue the rain had long since washed out of him, but that didn't mean he didn't wish for it when dealing with the confident, self-assured demon.

There was a moment of quiet, and then footsteps shuffling out of the back room. Aziraphale turned. Crowley was leaning against one of the bookshelves, a smug grin on his lips.

"I broke in," he said before Aziraphale could ask. "Hope you don't mind."

Aziraphale could barely hear him. The fresh round of panic made his ears buzz. He'd never thought a body could be both so cold and so hot at the same time.

_A bump of shoulders. A brush of fingers. Just a moment of eye contact._ That's all it would take, surely. Then he'd be able to tell if he was ... if he was still...

The grin faded from Crowley's face. He pushed himself away from the bookshelf and took another step forward. "Angel? You all right?"

"Oh ... yes, of course." Aziraphale reached for a smile and struggled for something else to say that would prove he wasn't lying. All he could come up with was, "Yes. Of course."

Crowley frowned, apparently unconvinced. "Where've you been?"

"Oh. Just ... out."

"In the rain? Without a coat or umbrella?"

Aziraphale ran his hands down the soaked fabric of his vest.

_Useless. Pathetic._ He couldn't even keep his clothes dry.

"I ... got caught in the shower. It's been raining on and off all day, but somehow I didn't think about it--"

"Aziraphale." There was a strange lack of bite or sarcasm in Crowley's voice, and Aziraphale stopped babbling. The demon took another step forward, almost within arm's-reach now. "You ought to leave the lying to me. What happened?"

One touch. One moment of eye contact. That's all it would take for everything to come spilling out of him. Aziraphale wasn't sure whether to consider Crowley's sunglasses a blessing or a curse. Even with them on, the demon's gaze felt too hot.

Aziraphale's smile faltered -- he struggled to hold it in place. "Nothing, my dear. Truly, it's nothing. Just ... well ... just a bad day."

"A bad day?" Crowley's voice was inscrutable.

"Humans have them, especially when it rains. I guess it's just another side effect of going native, as they say. It's really nothing, I'm sure. Stupid of me to even bring it up."

_Stupid, useless, pathetic angel._

Crowley touched his arm, softly, with just the tips of his fingers, and then all the tears Aziraphale had been pushing back all day, all the bouts of fear and self-loathing and loneliness he'd been struggling to keep down -- they all crashed into him in an instant.

He pressed his hand to his mouth, but that did nothing to muffle the sob tearing up from his throat.

"Angel," Crowley whispered, and before either of them could think it through, the demon pulled the angel into his arms.

Aziraphale wept. He wasn't quite sure why, but it felt so good to be held. Since the Earth was formed, he'd been the one to hold, to comfort, to love. That was what he was made for. That was what he did. To ever hope to be the one on the other end of such comfort and love was ... not what he was for.

But that didn't mean he didn't need it.

"I'm here, angel," Crowley whispered, his breath warm against Aziraphale's cold cheek. "I'm here. I've got you."


End file.
